Together these reports give a comprehensive and robust view of retail sales in the country. The Advance Monthly Retail Trade Survey is compiled by sending surveys to a sample set of businesses. Responding is required by law.

Even if we continue to see modest gains in retail sales, many businesses are still struggling to grow sales with limited, or even nonexistent budgets. If you are looking for ways to increase sales without spending much, try these ideas:

Maximize upsell opportunities

Upselling is a highly profitable tactic for increasing sales and profitability per customer. It involves inducing a customer to purchase additional or more expensive products and services than they had originally intended. The incremental cost of achieving the additional sales is negligible. The customer was already intent on making a purchase.

As consumers we are continually exposed to upselling. When you order a hamburger and are asked if you want the “meal deal” – which adds french fries and a soft drink – that is an upsell. Being asked to upgrade to run flat tires when you purchase a sports car is also an upsell.

Upselling can be applied to virtually any type of customer and industry. It can also be used effectively across multiple sales channels: your website, call center, retail space and more.

Execution is important. Using deception or acting desperately are poor ways to conduct upselling. It’s critical to ensure that your employees understand this and that your incentive scheme does not inadvertently promote bad behavior. Adding a quick survey at the end of a customer’s buying process to assess how the sales person treated them may counteract the desire to upsell too aggressively.

Facilitate impulse purchases

An impulse purchase is an unplanned decision to buy a product or service which is usually made right before a planned purchase is consummated. These are emotional, not rational, purchases. Recent studies estimate that about 20 percent of purchases are unplanned. A recent study by Miller Zell, a leading retail strategist, indicates that 51 percent of buyers make unplanned or impulse purchase decisions.

Some proven tactics for increasing impulse purchases include:

Using in-store signage that attracts attention and is positioned at or close to the point of sale

Making the process as simple as possible, ensuring that the buyer won’t be delayed by making the impulse purchase

For online and call center sales channels, including impulse purchases as part of the standard check-out order flow and script.

To determine the success of your impulse purchase campaign, establish benchmarks for sales based on recent performance by category, location, channel and employee. Consider implementing a management dashboard to assist with the process.

Optimize your selling environment

Paco Underhill, president of Envirosell, a behavioral research and consultancy firm focused on commercial environments, is also the author of “Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping” which discusses his research and methods for enhancing retail sales. One area covered in the book is organization of inventory. There are many tactics that can be used to make it easier for your customers to access higher-priced and higher-margin products. Steps like placing preferred items on shelves at eye-level, adjusting lighting and optimizing the floor plan can generate material increases in the sale of high-margin products.

Will all of these tactics work as planned? No. Nothing ever does! But it is definitely worth trying them out.